


Through the Looking Glass

by danielfaradays, fangirl_250_501



Category: Lost
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Canon-Typical Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29291499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danielfaradays/pseuds/danielfaradays, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_250_501/pseuds/fangirl_250_501
Summary: The first thing Juliet is aware of is the faint sound of screaming in the distance.(A role reversal AU where Juliet Burke leads a group of survivors from a plane crash, and where the Island is home to many familiar faces)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So @fangirl_250_501 and I decided that an AU in which the Oceanic survivors and the other characters (the Others, Dharma, and Freighter Folk) switch roles would be amazing, and this was born! This is the first part of a lengthy AU that will span the entire series.

The first thing Juliet is aware of is the faint sound of screaming in the distance.

The second is the blue sky overhead. 

The third is a golden retriever walking along the jungle floor. It trots towards her, stopping only to sniff at her hand; after a moment, it turns and runs back into the jungle.

Gingerly, she attempts to sit up, taking in her surroundings as she does so. The sound of screams is still persistent in her ears, and she ignores the soreness of her muscles in order to see where and _who_ it is coming from.

She grabs the branch of a nearby tree, the wood digging into her palm as she uses it to pull herself up. As she does so, she notices the oddest thing: A white, low-heeled shoe that looks much too formal to be worn in a jungle like this. Why anyone would be wearing something like that in a place like this was confounding to Juliet, but she has bigger things to worry about than random footwear strewn across the ground.

Instead, she takes off running in the direction of the screams. She pushes through the underbrush, feeling the branches scratch her arms as she runs. Finally, after several minutes, she stumbles out onto a beach. Everything seems calm, at least at first. Then her memories begin to fall into place as she takes in the sight of the wreckage strewn around her.

_My name is Juliet Burke_ , she tells herself as she gapes at the scene in shock. _I was on Oceanic Flight 815. And now I’m…. I’m here. Wherever here is._

She looks around at the chaos, unsure of who needs help the most. Both ends of the plane were missing, likely having been torn off during the crash. The remaining wing was clearly unstable, and dangerously close to falling on the survivors below.

_Do something!_ Juliet mentally scolds herself. Standing there and staring wasn’t going to do any good in the situation at hand. 

Again, she starts sprinting, this time into the chaos. There’s a redheaded woman helping a couple of people move away from the still-spinning engine, she notices. She briefly considers going over to help, but the redheaded woman seems to have things under control, for now, at least. 

“Help me!” Came a loud cry from nearby on the beach. “Oh God, someone help! Please!”

Juliet runs towards the person; a man, half trapped under some wreckage. “Sir, it’s going to be okay,” she says, slipping into her best bedside manner. Or, best as it can be under the circumstances. It’s a struggle, but she manages to get him out from under the debris he’s trapped under.

His leg is not a pleasant sight, although Juliet has seen worse. However, that “worse” was in a hospital, where she had all of the tools she needed. Here? Not so much. She’s not even technically trained for this situation; her focus is obstetrics. Not traumatic injuries.

Glancing around, she sees a man stumble past her. “Hey, hey you!”

The man turns to look at her, running a shaking hand through his shaggy brown hair. “Me?”

“Yes.” Juliet, doing her best to not be annoyed, waves him over. “I need your tie.”

The man blinks. “My… my tie?”

“I need to make a tourniquet so this man doesn’t bleed out,” she says fiercely. “Now give me your tie.”

The man nods. With still shaking hands he unties the tie and hands it to her. 

“What’s your name?” Juliet asks as she focuses on stopping the bleeding, hoping to ground the man enough so that he focuses.

“I-I’m Daniel.” He replies, doing his best to stop the shaking of his hands. “Daniel Faraday.”

“Well Daniel Faraday, do you think you can make sure this man stays alive?” Juliet continues. “For now, at least.” The last part was muttered under her breath, as she could see that Daniel was rattled by the crash, and she doesn’t want to make things worse. 

Daniel nods. “Sure?” He says it as more of a question than an answer, but Juliet doesn’t have time to worry about that. Instead, she scans the beach as she finishes tying the tourniquet. 

There’s a woman near the water, clearly pregnant; Juliet estimates seven or eight months along. She’s screaming, doubled over. The sight immediately draws her to her feet. “Stay here,” she tells Daniel. And with that, she’s running again.

“Hey, hey!” Juliet has to yell in order to get the woman’s attention. The pregnant woman looks up, and Juliet can see tears in her eyes. 

“Please.” The woman gasps. “Aidez-moi, s'il vous plaît, Oh, this wasn’t supposed to happen, why-”

“Look, I know this is really scary, but I’m going to need you to focus.” Juliet interrupts. “I’m an obstetrician, I can help you, I just need you to tell me what the problem is.”

“I’m having contrac-” The woman cuts herself short as she screams in pain, showing Juliet the severity of the situation.

_Don’t panic, Juliet._ She thinks to herself. She _can_ do this. 

“Okay.” She runs her hand through her hair as she speaks — god, why doesn’t she have a hair tie? — trying to come up with a plan. 

More screams echo around them. She can’t deliver a baby right now, not with the fumes of the jet fuel and smoke all around. Not to mention the collapsing plane. She’s got to try and do something, starting with getting the woman as far away from the wreckage as possible.

A man is standing on the shore, facing away from the ocean. He stares at the island behind them with reverence in his icy blue eyes. He seems just as shocked as the rest of them, but slightly more pulled together than Daniel was, or some of the others screaming on the beach.

“Hey!” Juliet calls out to him. He doesn’t flinch, simply turns to look at her curiously. “I need your help.”

The man nods. He jogs over to them almost instantly after Juliet spoke, surprising her. She wouldn’t expect someone who just survived a plane crash to be so punctual afterwards. 

As he gets closer, Juliet frowns slightly, thinking that maybe she shouldn’t ask this man to help. While the man seems to have a strong mind, he certainly doesn’t have a strong build, and she doubts that he will be able to carry a fully pregnant woman if she collapses.

Then again, she’ll use all the help she can get, and this man might surprise her.

“I need you to get her away from these fumes,” she says, trying to stay focused even as more people cry out for help, help that she probably could give if she wasn’t focused on the pregnant woman. “Get her someplace safe, and if her contractions get any closer together, find me.”

The man nods, looking at the woman. He gently takes her arm. “I can do that,” he says, voice clear. 

_He must be in shock_ , she thinks. _It hasn’t hit him yet._ But something about the look in his eyes… it makes Juliet extremely uneasy. Whoever this man is, Juliet is going to keep an eye on him.

“What’s your name?” The man asks, turning that intense look on her.

“I’m Juliet,” she says. “Thank you…?”

“Ben.” The man gives her a curious half smile. Her eyes narrow, once again noticing that his behavior is just… off. Obviously not everyone is going to react the same to a plane crash, but Ben didn’t seem concerned whatsoever.

_More people need help,_ she reminds herself. Juliet jogs back towards the fuselage, but she turns to take one last quick look at Ben, who is doing nothing but help the pregnant woman. She decides to forget about him for the moment, and she looks around for the next problem she has to solve.

Juliet hears a man screaming for someone named Penny over and over. The man in question has a large beard and hair that cuts off a little above his shoulders. He seems to be frantic, until he spots a blonde woman across the beach and starts running towards her.

She quickly glances over at Daniel first to make sure he has been able to keep the man with the injured leg alive. He seems to be doing alright, although he looks paler than Juliet thought humanly possible. 

Movement draws her attention away from Daniel, and she sees a man standing near the jungle. He looks overwhelmed and lost, and as Juliet watches he sinks to the ground, covering his ears against the sound. It’s such an odd reaction, and Juliet considers seeing if he needs help. However, she remembers that there are more injured people who need her help, and she is about to go to where it looks the worst —

BOOM!

An earthshaking explosion near where the engine is sends Juliet flying backwards. Her heart sinks as she realizes that there were people near the jet engine who are probably dead now.

Almost as if out of instinct, she looks back and the man is still desperately covering his ears, trying to block _something_ out. He looks as if he is in pain, and she is able to hear him yell “Stop!”

_Stop what?_ Juliet thinks to herself, deciding that she should probably check to see what is going on with him.

However, before she is able to do anything, a groaning sound comes from overhead, and Juliet realizes that the wing of the fuselage, which hangs over Daniel and her other patient, is about to tear off and fall to the ground.

“Hey, HEY!! Daniel!!” Juliet starts running towards him. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots the redheaded woman that she noticed before sprinting towards the fuselage as well, likely having seen the situation too.

Daniel looks up, confused. 

“The wing!” The redheaded woman yells, her British accent clear. 

Daniel glances up and realizes the danger he’s in. Immediately, he’s scrambling to his feet, trying to guide the injured man with him as well. Juliet reaches him in a heartbeat before the other woman does; she slings her arm around the injured man’s waist and helps Daniel pull him forward.

Once Juliet is able to get the injured man to safety on her own, the redheaded woman practically shoves Daniel away from the fuselage. A few seconds later, the wing drops, a ton of steel and wiring crashing towards the ground.

“Move!” Juliet shouts, her voice hoarse, as she continues dragging her patient forward. 

When the wing hits the sand, it explodes. Debris goes flying as the survivors all hit the ground, looking for cover. Juliet pulls the injured man down and shields him; just behind her, she sees Daniel and the other woman take cover next to each other, using their arms to shield their heads from the aftermath of the explosion.

“Are you okay?” Juliet asks the man next to her. He nods. She turns around and addresses Danel next. “You good?”

Daniel nods, looking nauseous.

“You’d better be,” the woman remarks. “I did nearly get squashed for you.”

“I… um… thank you.” Daniel stammers. 

Juliet looks at her. “Thanks for the help there.”

“Don’t mention it.” The woman exhales shakily, still trying to catch her breath. “I’m Charlotte. And you are?”

“I’m Juliet.” 

“Well, I’d say nice to meet you, but…” Charlotte looks around. “These are hardly the best circumstances.”

“You said it.” The chaos is starting to settle, with more survivors wandering around in varying states of shock. The weight of what just happened starts to weigh heavy on Juliet’s shoulders. There’s no one to distract her from a crushing wave of grief that starts to settle over her. 

Logically, she knows this is a trauma response. That everything she’s doing is perfectly natural after such an event. But it still doesn’t help.

_Rachel, I’m sorry I’ll be late,_ she thinks. 

Will she ever see her sister again?


	2. Chapter 2

Charlotte stares out at the waves and wonders where the rescue team is.

Surely someone is coming. This wasn’t a shitty private plane, it was a jet from a major airline. Someone should’ve noticed by now that they aren’t in Los Angeles, and come looking.

Still, the sun is setting, and so far there’s been no sightings of rescue on the horizon.

A woman with olive skin and dark hair has started to build a signal fire along with a few others, but Charlotte doubts they can make it large enough for a plane flying overhead to see. At least the screaming has stopped, though she can hear people crying still. Not that she blames them — shock does funny things to everyone. Besides, she can’t exactly judge people who now have dead loved ones. She had been travelling alone, and she can’t imagine what it would have been like if someone she cares about had been on the plane.

“Hey.”

A voice behind her causes her to turn. It’s the man she helped rescue from the falling wing. He’s standing there, looking incredibly out of place in his dress shirt and dark slacks. 

“Hi,” she says, guarded as ever.

“I, uh, just wanted to say thank you. Again.” The man says. “You know, for saving my life.” Charlotte raises her eyebrows. If the situation had been reversed, she would have thanked him of course, but also would have moved on from it almost immediately after. It makes her feel a little guilty when she thinks about it that way. 

“You’re welcome, ……?” She trails off, realizing that she still doesn’t know his name.

“I’m Daniel.” The man gives her a nervous smile. “Daniel Faraday. And you’re Charlotte, right?”

She nods. “Pleasure to meet you properly, Daniel.”

Daniel still hovers for a moment after that, and Charlotte realizes he’s probably looking for human connection after the crash. She gestures to the sand next to her. “You can sit for a while, if you’d like. I’m just keeping an eye out for rescue.”

“Oh.” Daniel says quietly, clearly not expecting an invitation. “Uh, alright.” He awkwardly plops down on the beach next to her, brushing the gritty sand off of his pants.  
After a moment, he says “This was already the worst week of my life, even before we crashed.” Charlotte can tell that he’s trying to make conversation, but he’s not doing a very good job of it. Then again, what else is there to talk about when one has just been through a plane crash?

“Oh?” She questions. 

Daniel looks at the sand under his feet. “I was in Sydney because my mom died. I was there to, to get her body and bring it back to LA for the funeral.”

“I… I’m so sorry.” Charlotte says quietly. There’s really no good thing to say to console a loss that great, but she tries her best. 

“And now the body is who-knows-where.” Dan lets out a dry chuckle. “She’d hate it here. She hated any sort of mess or deviation from the plan. For her, everything needed to be perfect”

Charlotte frowns, seeing the look in Daniel’s eyes. She would think that when someone talks about a deceased family member they would look back on them fondly, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with him. Daniel seems almost…. Afraid?

Daniel shakes his head a little, as if he’s clearing his thoughts. He looks at Charlotte. “So, why were you in Sydney?”

He sounds genuinely curious, not just asking for the sake of asking. Charlotte expected him to be more self-involved, at least given that he seems to have his head in the clouds, but instead he’s focused on her.

“I was there for work,” she answers, deciding to keep it as vague as possible. “I’m an archaeologist, and I was invited to a conference.” She doesn’t think she sounds very convincing, but Daniel seems to believe what she says.

The sun sinks over the horizon, casting a last bit of daylight out over the ocean. In the twilight, with the fires around them and the sound of the water, it could almost be mistaken for peaceful.

The calm is then shattered by a monstrous roar.

Charlotte spins around, staring at the treeline. The trees are shaking as though something enormous is moving through them. The noise only grows louder as Charlotte, Dan, and the rest of the survivors curiously inch forward.

“I’m not the only one who heard that, right?” Asks the woman who had been working on the signal fire. She looks up at the shaking jungle in disbelief, which Charlotte can’t really blame her for.

No one answers her question; it was likely rhetorical anyways. Instead, they all stare in awe and shock at what is unfolding before their eyes. 

“Terrific,” another man grumbles from near Charlotte. He’s wearing a hoodie with the hood up, and he looks like he wants to be left alone. “As if this day couldn’t get any better.”

The blonde who was playing hero earlier — Juliet — steps forward from the crowd.

“Everyone, just calm down.” She begins, but is soon cut off by the rest of the survivors interrupting.

“Calm down?” A tall, heavily muscled man asks. “Who are _you_ to tell us to calm down, lady?”

“I don’t see you stepping up to help.” Juliet retorts, folding her arms across her chest. 

Charlotte gets to her feet, sensing a fight on the horizon. Daniel also scrambles to his feet, though he looks far less ready to get into a scuffle than she does.

“Let’s not start a fight.” The woman who made the signal fire intervenes. “Clearly we have bigger things to worry about.”

Charlotte notices a man hovering near the edge of the crowd, keeping his electric blue eyes fixed on the trees. He’s staring at whatever is out there with a strange expression.

“She’s right.” Charlotte says in response to the other woman, looking away from the man. “We can’t have infighting.” The muscular man who had undermined Juliet simply scoffs and walks away, followed by most of the other crash survivors who just want to stay out of the conflict.

Juliet and Charlotte exchange a quick glance, both of them coming to the same conclusion that the man who just left was someone they need to keep an eye on.

“So, we crashed on an island, no one came to rescue us, and now there’s a monster in the jungle,” The man who had previously been sarcastic about the monster comments. “Great. This is great.” 

“Let’s focus on solutions,” Juliet says, giving him a look. “We know that the monster is out there. So we stay out of the jungle until rescue comes.”

“That’s exactly why rescue _hasn’t_ come,” the woman who built the fire says. “The cockpit probably broke off when we crashed, but that’s where the transceiver and communication equipment is. If it stopped transmitting, then there’s no way for anyone to find us. I might be able to get a signal if we have it, but until then there’s no guarantee of anyone coming.”

“You want to go _into_ the monster jungle?” The sarcastic man asks. “What a great way to get yourself killed.”

Charlotte turns on the man. “How about you do something other than make quips for a change? I don’t see you volunteering to go out there yourself.”

The man sneers. “It’s called being realistic, Red. And I’m not dying just so Miss Oh-So-Good-With-Technology over here can _maybe_ get a signal.”

“It’s Nadia,” the woman retorts. “Please, if you want to insult me, use my actual name.”

 _I like her_ , Charlotte thinks to herself. She admires Nadia’s attitude and ability to deal with the situation. Plus, she is getting very annoyed by the sarcastic man and is glad someone managed to shut him up. 

“Guys, c’mon,” Daniel steps forward, hands held up placatingly. “Listen, we’re in enough trouble as it is, and we don’t need any bad attitudes right now. We’re all trying to do what we can.”

“This isn’t Sesame Street, okay? We don’t need a pep talk,” the man grumbles.

Daniel wilts somewhat at that, but then squares his shoulders. “I’ll go after the transceiver tomorrow. I don’t think, uh, going at night would be the best idea.”

Juliet raises an eyebrow. “You want to go out there?”

Daniel nods.

Juliet looks like she has some concerns, but instead, she simply replies, “Well, you’re not going alone. I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Charlotte interrupts. “You’re our only doctor. We need you here to take care of the injured. I’ll go with him.”

She turns to the sarcastic man. “Maybe you want to tag along, actually be helpful for a change?”

The man sneers. “Fine. Not because I want to prove anything to you, but because I want to get off this rock as soon as I can.”

“Aren’t you selfless?” Juliet remarks drily. The man glares at her. 

“So Charlotte and….” Daniel trails off, still not knowing the name of the sarcastic man. 

“I’m Miles.” The man doesn’t offer a last name.

“Right, Miles,” Daniel says. “So the three of us, we’ll head out in the morning.” He gives them all a nervous smile, which Charlotte finds oddly endearing. Still, she can’t help but think that this is eerily similar to the situation she was in just a few days ago… 

_Charlotte really didn’t like Australia. Too many things trying to kill her. Granted, that probably didn’t apply to the entire country, but where she was? She would be lucky if she survived the morning._

_“Get out of here! Shoo!” She drew back from a frightening looking spider, waving her hands as if that could ward it away. She’s usually more of a tough girl, but that thing looked like something out of a sci-fi TV show. She sighed as she pulled down the flap of her tent and poked her head out, making sure there were no other large animals about to charge at her. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she stepped out onto the surface of the mountain base._

_From near the campfire, Diana grinned. “Another spider?”_

_“I hate those bastards,” Charlotte grumbled. Diana was the woman in charge of the dig, the one who had requested Charlotte to be flown in. Charlotte wasn’t sure exactly why she’d had to abandon her plans to go to a dig funded by Charles Widmore in Tunisia to head to Australia, but Diana had insisted it be her. “Can we move out already? I have a plane to catch tomorrow, and I don’t want to be late.”_

_“I’ve been ready for hours, Charlotte.” She commented. Charlotte couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but she didn’t have time to figure it out. The two of them moved towards the hiking path up the mountain, and began the steep climb..._

They leave first thing, and Charlotte is grateful she wore her hiking boots on the plane. There’s no easy path to follow, just smoke from the wreckage. It’s not an issue for her, since this is all part of her daily life, but she’s more than a little concerned about her companions.

Daniel, clearly still on edge, tries to start conversation with them. He asks Miles about why he was on the plane, and Miles refuses to answer. 

“Play nice back there,” Charlotte calls over her shoulder.

“Who died and made you team leader?” Miles retorts. The three of them quickly grow quiet, realizing that a whole lot of people had died in the crash, which had prompted Charlotte to step up. 

Soon after, the rain starts. Miles swears loudly as they’re all suddenly soaked to the skin, and Charlotte can’t help but curse as well. Daniel merely blinks up at the sky, as if it barely bothers him.

After another forty minutes Charlotte can see the cockpit through the trees. Miles and Daniel trail behind her, not quite matching her long stride. Dan has started talking nervously again, and she can hear the irritation in Miles’s voice whenever he responds.

Once the cockpit comes into full view, Dan falls silent. After a moment, he asks “Do you think anyone’s alive in there?”

Miles tilts his head to the side, as if he’s listening for something. Charlotte shifts uncomfortably, part of her not wanting to find out the answer to Daniel’s question. 

The stench of death greets them as they get closer. Charlotte wrinkles her nose a little, and pauses for a half-second before forcing herself to climb inside. It doesn’t look like anyone has survived, at least not here. First class wasn’t full, but she could see an older couple, as well as a handful of businessmen and women. Bile rises in her throat when she sees a young girl, no older than ten years old, laying dead in her seat. Charlotte forces herself to walk past, knowing that she had to focus on their survival. She could mourn the dead later.

Miles, meanwhile, is acting even stranger than he had been on the hike to get there. He seems to look at each passenger individually, sometimes shuddering as he passes them. At the back, Dan looks green as he climbs past the bodies. When he sees the young girl, he pauses too; Charlotte knows because he lets out a small, sad gasp. 

Once all three of them have made it through the cabin, they lean against the wall, staring up at the closed door. Charlotte reaches out towards the handle, but stops when she feels like her arm is about to fall off. The only one of the three of them in any position to reach it is Daniel. 

“Can you open it?” She asks him, gesturing towards the door. For a moment, Dan doesn’t move, but it then seems to dawn on him that Charlotte was talking to him. 

Miles rolls his eyes. “This is gonna be great.”

Charlotte glares at him while Dan winces a bit, but Miles’s words seem to do the trick. He reaches for the handle and grasps it. He tugs it once, and then again; on the third time the door swings towards them and the co-pilot’s body falls forward.

Charlotte does her best to not scream as the body goes flying, missing her by inches. Daniel looks as if he is about to violently puke, and even Miles seems a little disturbed. 

“You good?” Charlotte directs the question mostly at Daniel.

“Yeah,” Daniel says weakly. “Great.”

“I’m good too, by the way,” Miles mutters under his breath. Charlotte rolls her eyes at his sarcasm, but the situation quickly turns serious again as the three remember that they’re going to have to go _inside_ the cockpit.

She can tell that none of them want to go first, herself included. 

Finally, Daniel reaches for the now-open door and pulls himself inside. He turns around and offers his hand to Charlotte, who takes it gratefully and lets him help her up. Miles scoffs quietly before taking the same route as Dan and using his momentum to get into the cockpit, refusing help from Charlotte and Daniel. 

The pilot is still strapped into his seat, and his hands are still gripping the controls. An ugly cut runs along his temple. He doesn’t appear to be breathing. 

“He’s not dead.” Miles says quietly, breaking the silence. The other two glance at him, wondering how on earth he could possibly know that. He notices their looks, and he quickly shrugs, posture curling into a defensive stance. “I don’t think he is, I mean. He doesn’t have many injuries.” Daniel doesn’t seem to notice, but Charlotte can see a flash of panic behind Miles’s eyes. She decides not to question it for now, since they have the apparently-alive pilot to deal with. 

Charlotte moves a bit closer to the pilot. Slowly, she reaches out and tries to see if she can feel a pulse. “Are you sure —?”

The pilot jolts to life with a shout, and Charlotte pulls her arm back instinctively, letting out a quiet gasp. 

“What… who…. where…?” The pilot rambles, clearly trying to get his bearings. He looks around the cockpit, taking in his three rescuers and the state of the plane. 

Daniel moves forward first. “It’s okay,” he says gently. “You’re okay.”

“Where the hell are we?” The pilot fumbles with his seatbelt, using the destroyed controls to help prop himself up. 

Charlotte and Dan exchange an uneasy glance before Daniel responds. “We, uh, crashed. About sixteen hours ago.”

“Crashed?” The pilot repeats, breathing heavily. “Crashed where?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” Charlotte replies, sighing before she continues. “We don’t know.” The pilot lets out a long string of curses, including a couple Charlotte doesn’t recognize. 

Miles leans against the wall of the cockpit. “This is great. This conversation is going great. Maybe you wanna break some more bad news to him while you’re at it.”

“Oh shut up, Miles.” Charlotte snaps. But the pilot seems to focus on a different part of Miles’s retort.

“There’s _more_ bad news?” He questions. Charlotte sighs again. If he cursed like he had at the news that they didn’t know where they were, she doesn’t know what he will do at the rest of it.

The three of them glance at each other, as if daring one of the others to say it. 

Miles smirks and turns to the pilot, bluntly saying, “Oh, just a monster in the jungle. No big deal.”

The pilot gives each of them a disbelieving look in turn. “Now you’re just messing with me, right?” 

Charlotte shrugs. “Hopefully we won’t be here long enough to find out if he’s not. We’re looking for the plane’s transceiver.”

The pilot winces. “Wrong place…” he mutters.

“What?”

“The wrong place.” The pilot looks at Charlotte. “Six hours in, our radio went out. No one could see us. We turned back to land in Fiji. By the time we hit turbulence, we … we were a thousand miles off course. They're looking for us in the wrong place.”

Miles is the first to react, letting out a long, frustrated sigh as he kicks the co-pilot’s chair. Charlotte runs her hand through her hair, wishing that she could un-hear what the pilot just said. Dan simply stands there, still comprehending what happened.

“We do have a transceiver.” The pilot tries to sit up, looking for it.

“That’s what we were hoping you’d say,” Daniel says, sounding like he’s trying to put on a brave face. “You shouldn’t move too much though, that cut looks pretty bad. There’s a doctor back at the beach, she can help you when we get back.”

Charlotte, meanwhile, carefully rummages through the equipment, hoping that the transceiver isn’t damaged in any way. Out of a black box, she pulls an odd-looking walkie-talkie, and she holds it up for the pilot to see.

“Is this it?” She asks breathlessly. 

The pilot nods.

Miles peers out the door. “Hey, we should probably get going before —”

An ear-shattering roar shakes the cabin. The clicks and whirs that follow are the same sounds that Charlotte, Daniel, and Miles had heard on the beach last night.

“Yeah. Before _that_.” Miles whispers. The other three shush him immediately, even the pilot, who probably has no idea what is going on.

“The hell is out there?” The pilot tries to peer through the window, but Charlotte stops him, shaking her head.

“We don’t know, but we did see it rip up a bunch of trees last night, so I’d recommend keeping your head in here.” She says as quietly as possible. The steady ticking noise grows louder as a large shadow passes by the window. No one dares to move an inch or speak a single word. Even Miles looks scared, which Charlotte can’t exactly blame him for. 

Then the cockpit rocks back and forth as something slams into the side of it; all of them are thrown about. Daniel nearly falls through the open door but Charlotte grabs his arm and pulls him back to safety; he looks at her with gratitude in the calm seconds before the monster knocks the cockpit onto the ground.

“Run!” Charlotte yells that over her shoulder before heading for the door; she can hear the sound of footsteps behind her, but she doesn’t dare pause to look. The four of them race through the cabin, passing the bodies, before jumping out and into the rain. The monster roars again, and a curious part of Charlotte wants to turn now to see, she wants to know what it is…

But then Daniel collides with her shoulder as she slows for a moment and almost knocks them both over. Charlotte rights herself and charges forward, now too terrified to even think about turning around.

Miles and the pilot have managed to get ahead, and Charlotte continues to sprint as fast as she can. Under different circumstances, she probably wouldn’t have been able to run this fast, but one can do strange things when their life is on the line. 

However, after a few more minutes of intense running, Charlotte notices that the sound of the monster has gotten quieter. Deciding to take a risk, she pauses for a moment and looks back. The trees behind her are completely demolished, but there is no monster in sight.

She’s about to turn around again when she sees it: A tiny wisp of black smoke hovering in the air for a moment before darting off and vanishing into the jungle. She shakes her head, thinking that she was surely seeing things. However, the black smoke was already gone, and it was too late to check.

 _I probably just imagined it,_ Charlotte tells herself. But she still can’t shake the feeling that what she saw was very much real.

In front of her, Miles, Daniel, and the pilot have all realized that the monster is gone, and they all try to catch their breath. 

“We’re alive.” Daniel whispers in amazement, looking at his hands as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Great observation.” Miles mutters sarcastically. Of course, even after an encounter with a literal monster, the first thing he says is a sarcastic remark.

The pilot shakes his head. “We gotta get off this rock.”

“You said it,” Miles says. “Now, anyone remember the way back to the beach?”

“Follow me,” Charlotte says. “I know the way back.” I think, she added silently, although the rest of them didn’t need to know that.

As they’re heading in the hopefully right direction, Daniel strikes up a conversation again, this time with the pilot. He introduces himself, stammering over his name again like it’s a question, before asking “And what’s your name, captain?”.

“It’s Lapidus. Frank Lapidus,” the pilot says in response. “Drop the captain though, kid, Frank works just fine.”

“Lapidus?” Miles snickers. 

“You got a problem with that?” Frank asks. He stops walking and turns to face Miles, his arms folded across his chest. 

“Whoa, hey,” Dan steps in between the two of them as if to stop a fight. “Let’s just get back to the beach, okay?”

“Daniel’s right,” Charlotte adds. “We don’t have time for this.” She turns and walks back towards the beach, not bothering to see if anyone follows her, although she’s pretty sure they do.

Hopefully, this will end better than the last time she walked up a mountain…

_Exhausted, Charlotte and Diana finally reached the top of the mountain in the early afternoon. It was closed off, and the site was empty, since Diana wanted only her and Charlotte to be there that day._

_“After you.” Diana said, gesturing to it. Charlotte cautiously walked forward, avoiding any area that looked unstable._

_“What do you need me to do here?” Charlotte asked._

_Diana gestured to a partially excavated area. “It’s over there. When we first found it, I thought it was just… I don’t know, something some teenagers buried for a laugh. But then I saw this symbol, one I remembered you always trying to find, and I knew I had to call you in.”_

_Charlotte crouched down next to the site. Someone had dug up a metal box that could easily be mistaken for a time capsule or something like that. That’s when Charlotte noticed it: the intricate black and white logo, with the word “DHARMA” etched in the center._

_She grinned. “That’s why you’re the best,” she said over her shoulder. “May I?”_

_“Go ahead,” Diana replied._

_Charlotte picked up the box, carefully making sure she didn’t drop it. Gently, she opened it, and gasped at the contents. Inside the box were dozens of photographs, of men and women wearing the same khaki jumpsuits. Many of them had their faces crossed out, but a few were left unmarked. One of those photos is of a young brunette girl, smiling wide as if she didn’t have a care in the world._

_Charlotte flipped through the photos, desperately searching for the one picture she hoped was unmarked. She finally found it towards the bottom of the box. She gently picked it up, eyes watering as she looked at the black X through the face of the subject._

_It was a man, with blue eyes and a cheerful grin. Charlotte winced slightly, and brushed her fingers across the image._

_That was the first time she’d seen a photo of her father since she was a little girl._


End file.
